


Honey & Lemon

by APgeeksout



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Guilt, M/M, Pneumonia, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 06:56:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12625605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APgeeksout/pseuds/APgeeksout
Summary: "You don't have to stay," Seth said, and then broke off to cough until his eyes watered and his face went red with the effort of breathing.  "I'll be fine.  It's only a cough."





	Honey & Lemon

**Author's Note:**

> For the "pneumonia" square of my Round 8 card for H/C Bingo. Set at some point in the Fall/Winter of 2017.

"You don't have to stay," Seth said, and then broke off to cough until his eyes watered and his face went red with the effort of breathing. "I'll be fine. It's only a cough." 

"It's walking pneumonia that you've been walking - and cross-fitting and high-flying and suicide-diving - around with for how long now?" Roman said and crossed his arms, unimpressed. "You're going to bed, and I'm not going anywhere. Okay?"

Seth cleared his throat then nodded. "Yeah, okay."

"Good." He navigated around the jumbled pile of their bags in the entryway and reached out to give his shoulder a squeeze. "Go get comfortable. I'm going to make you something hot to drink. Think you could eat?" 

Seth made a face and shook his head, and then instead of moving out toward a hot shower or a soft bed or even the couch, just stood by awkwardly, stifling another cough with his fist. 

"You need something else right now?" 

"Nah... I just... thanks." His voice was a rusty croak, and there were deep shadows smudged up under his eyes, and Roman stepped in closer to pull him to his chest in a hug, easy as anything. Seth's misery made it easier, just for now, to push aside the pile of things left unsaid and undone between them. 

"Go rest," he said, and turned him loose. "Me and your hot toddy will be there in a minute." 

It took more than a minute, of course, but not too awful long; even after three years, everything in Seth's kitchen was still pretty much where he remembered from when this place had felt like his second home. While the water boiled, he fished a tea bag and a bear with its belly half-full of honey from the cabinets, a lemon from the mostly-bare fridge, and a fifth of whiskey from the makeshift bar tucked into the counter space behind the coffeemaker. 

He opened the cupboard where Seth's dishes lived and found a hodgepodge of coffee cups stamped with the logos of gyms he'd visited and protein supplements he'd tried, and in among them, a few pieces of company merch. The Undisputed Future. World's Greatest Director of Operations. Dirty Deeds. Hit Hard Hit Often. 

He took out the bright turquoise one with cartoon versions of the New Day riding a unicorn and set the tea to steeping while he wedged up the lemon and squeezed it into the mug along with a healthy drizzle of honey and a good belt of whiskey. While he waited for the tea to get strong and dark, he took out his phone and tapped out a note to remind himself to make sure they all got a mug with the new Shield design. 

When he was satisfied with what he'd brewed up, he picked up the mug and a bag of goodies from the drugstore and brought them all into the bedroom, where Seth had propped himself up against the headboard, looking washed-out and weary in the flickering light cast by the muted TV. 

"Here you go, sickie," he said softly, and waited for Seth to take the mug in his clammy hands. 

It was probably still too hot to drink yet, but he wrapped both hands around its surface and brought it up to his face to breathe in the fragrant steam and watched placidly while Roman edged around the bed and opened a dresser drawer to snag a clean pair of socks. He knew Seth was feeling bad when he didn't protest or even question it when he turned back the covers from the foot of the bed, settled himself down next to Seth's feet, and peeled off one black sock. 

"I have to say," Seth rasped over the rim of the mug, "of all the ways I imagined getting you back in my bed 'being gross and full of snot' never made the list."

"Looks like you found my weak spot." He chuckled and reached into the store bag for a fat blue tub of Vicks. "This is what Mama always did when we were little." 

He unscrewed the lid and broke the seal and scooped out a dollop of ointment with his fingers, the menthol scent already spreading through the room to prickle at his nose. He dabbed some on to Seth's heel and swiped a thick layer up the arch of his foot. 

Seth squirmed and broke out with a helpless laugh that turned into an even more helpless cough. 

"Sorry," Roman said, trying to smear it over his whole sole without setting him off again. "Forgot how ticklish you are." He'd forgotten a lot of things about Seth, or at least tried to. He hadn't realized how much being reminded of it all would hurt. "Once you get to feeling human again, we're going to have some fun with that."

"I really want that," Seth said thickly, and when Roman looked up at him, he held his eyes, at least for the moment before he launched into another coughing fit.

"Drink," he said, and eased a fresh sock over Seth's heel, stopping to knead at his calf under his sweats. "We got time for all the rest. Right?"

Seth took an obedient swallow and tapped a foot against Roman's knee. "Right."

They fell quiet for a little, with Seth nursing his tea and Roman slathering up his other foot and snugging it into a clean sock. 

"Want some on your chest too?"

Seth nodded and shuffled on the bed to set his mug on the nightstand and drag his shirt off over his head. By the time he had settled back against his throne of pillows, loose hair a dark fuzzy wreath around his head, Roman had moved up nearer the head of the bed and scooped another dab of Vicks out of the jar, letting it warm on his fingers a little before smoothing it over his boy's skin.

"Oh, now, that's a look," Seth said, chuckling then coughing again, at the dark hair on his chest, plastered down in the shining goop in the wake of Roman's hand. "You sure you still want a piece of this?" 

Roman scoffed. "You're beautiful and you know it," he said, and felt Seth's throat work under his fingers as he salved up the hollow between his collarbones. He glanced up at his face and caught the track of a tear glistening silver in the TV's glow before Seth swiped it away with the back of his fist. "Hey, you okay? It's not burning or anything, right?"

"Nah, I'm good." He shook his head and leaned forward to tug his t-shirt back on, failing voice muffled by the cotton as he continued. "It's all good."

Roman didn't quite believe that, but he let it be while he screwed the cap back on the container and took a minute to gather up and throw away the shopping bag and empty wrappers and to wash the lingering traces of Vicks from his hands and to get together a little sickbed stash of kleenex and aspirin, cough drops and Gatorade. He laid the whole spread out on the nightstand while Seth watched blearily from beneath a lumpy pile of blankets he'd heaped onto himself while Roman had been in the other room.

"Chills?" he asked, and reached out, even as Seth nodded, to press the inside of his wrist to Seth's forehead to gauge the fever in   
his hot skin. "Can I sit with you awhile?"

"Long as you don't mind me falling asleep on you." 

"I've had worse," he said, and winced when Seth's eyes darted away. He wondered if they were both remembering the dull impact of a steel chair, a three count nearly drowned out by the roar of a Wrestlemania crowd. He smoothed his hand over Seth's hair and rounded the bed to climb in the other side, rearranging one of the layers of blankets to cover the both of them. 

Seth produced a remote from somewhere in the folds of bedding and unmuted the TV, Littlefinger trying to sell half-truths in a _Game of Thrones_ repeat suddenly filing in the background noise as Seth listed against his shoulder, warm and heavy and pliant. "Sorry I'm such lousy company."

"You feel like shit, right? You don't gotta entertain me," he said, and shifted to loop an arm around his shoulders, tucking him more firmly into his side.

"Know that's not even the start of what I should be apologizing for." Seth huffed a watery sigh. "Don't know why you're here. 'S the last thing I deserve."

He was quiet for a moment, weighing his options while Seth erupted into another coughing spell, ribs shuddering against his own. "Ah, little brother, you want to talk apologies later, you better believe I'm all ears," he said, turning to brush his lips over Seth's temple and the tangle of his hair. "But you know you don't have to do anything to deserve my attention or my time. Gonna give it to you no matter what you do." 

Seth jerked against him again, and he decided not to put any work into telling the difference between a suppressed cough and a suppressed sob. Either one was going to put the same steel of protectiveness down his spine. "You're in my heart; that's how it works." Seth didn't answer, even when his curled fist came to rest over Roman's heart. "Even when I wished it didn't."


End file.
